Poll: The official I voted/election results thread

Who did you vote for?

  • Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

    Votes: 4 0.3%
  • Conservative

    Votes: 518 39.5%
  • Democratic Unionist Party

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Green Party

    Votes: 65 5.0%
  • Labour

    Votes: 241 18.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 99 7.5%
  • Didn't vote / spoiled ballot

    Votes: 136 10.4%
  • Other party

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Respect Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • SNP

    Votes: 67 5.1%
  • Social Democratic and Labour Party

    Votes: 2 0.2%
  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 4 0.3%
  • UKIP

    Votes: 158 12.0%

  • Total voters
    1,313
It's not "fairly meaningless" though, it's exactly what it says it is - households earning some (small) % of the median. The assumption is that the median household is "doing all right", but a household earning 60% of that probably has a lot less disposable income and lower quality of life.

Another way to think of it is how would you determine a "minimum standard of living"? One way would be to find a "minimum" rent price, minimum food bills, minimum transport costs, etc. etc. and add them all up.

Take housing, the average rent last year was £815 a month. The "minimum standard" might be a smaller house, costing £490 a month, or 60% of the mean (could do the same for mortgage payments). Then take food bills, average £44.20 a week, so maybe our minimum standard would be £26.52 a week (60% of mean). Transport, average £65.70 a week, let's make the minimum spend £40 a week, etc. etc.

Fiddle the numbers a bit if you think poverty should involve spending differently than the above but I bet it would still be pretty close to the 60% of median figure.

I don't think we should be interested in the numbers at all to be honest. And yes it is meaningless, unless you think that people suddenly became less poor and less deprived because the median wage fell?

What matters is are people being provided for not how much they earn compared to the average. Do they have a suitable standard of roof over their head? Are they getting the correct nutrition? Are they able to participate culturally?

This seems to be a much better measure to me than "Do they have this arbitrary amount of money?".
 
I don't think we should be interested in the numbers at all to be honest. And yes it is meaningless, unless you think that people suddenly became less poor and less deprived because the median wage fell?

What matters is are people being provided for not how much they earn compared to the average. Do they have a suitable standard of roof over their head? Are they getting the correct nutrition? Are they able to participate culturally?

This seems to be a much better measure to me than "Do they have this arbitrary amount of money?".

You seem a bit caught up on this falling poverty in Scotland thing. Could you provide a URL to evidence? I can't find any news for decreasing poverty. The closest is that poverty in 2009/10 was the same as the preceding years.

In any case, if it did decrease slightly after the crash that doesn't make it a poor statistic, since you have a perfectly good hypothesis why it would happen (falling wages affecting the middle more than the poorest, so that the number of people between the 3rd and 5th decile increased). It would only be meaningless if it moved around and we couldn't explain why.

You can say you want a measure of "how well people are being provided for" other than income but it's not much use making the point if you've got no idea how it could be done. The fact is, all of those things cost money, so it's fairly safe to say that any families earning substantially less than the ones who are doing "OK" are probably struggling.
 
It's the old people wot won it.

Source for this.
I still don't see how it can prove accurate that Labour got more votes from every age group under 65 yet the above 65 voting population was sufficient to change the overall amount by such a vast level.

-specifically

Popular vote
Cons 11,334,576
Labour 9,347,304

Percentage
Cons 36.9%
Labour 30.4%

Those are the actual overall result figures. I can't see the over 65 having that much of a skew.

-edit2
checking population data, which unfortunately I have no way of checking voter apathy rates
18–24 6.3M
25–34 8.4M
35–44 8.7M
45–54 8.6M
55–64 7.4M
65+ 10.5M
so approx. 39.4M versus 10.5M triggering a massive swing, I can't see it.

-edit 3

Just read what Mr Jack said, Thanks
The whole thing is indeed twaddle then.
 
Last edited:
What's this supposed to mean? You mean die from starvation? You might be interested to know that taking thrown out food from bins is stealing, people have been taken to court for it before. (Alternative link, apparently this particular couple had only £8/week to spend after rent, bills, and loan repayments.)
.

That story, is of course unfortunate and the council are to blame for the stupidity of their decisions, doesn't change my view. People need to stop thinking the social state will be there much longer, people need to realise they can't rely on other peoples generosity to survive.

Why should anyone who has toiled for a lifetime to get a worthwhile job, care that much about someone who does not? (seriously) No one is willing to pay for social liberalism any more.
 
Last edited:


It's the old people wot won it.

Where did you get that and is it just based on membership as the voting slip doesn't have an age box... ;)
 
Absolutely, it's impossible to get rid of relative poverty by it's very definition. It is utterly meaningless.
Incorrect, relative poverty is a scale - a factor.

This factor can be reduced or increased, both choices have social consequences. Just because something is impossible to eliminate, it's entirely possible to mitigate & reduce. Death is inevitable & impossible to get rid of, should be abandon medicine because all it does is extend & mitigate against?. Of course not, that would be a stupid argument.

Because as a measure it is fairly meaningless. After the financial crisis Scotland saw a drop in relative poverty. This drop was because of a fall in average wages so more people were worse off yet less people were living in poverty.

Personally I feel a better measure would be to set a minimum standard of living that we deem acceptable in the UK and make sure everyone meets at least that rather than worrying if they have a certain percentage of a certain arbitrary figure.
It's not an either or question, we can ensure a minimum standard of living while also attempting to reduce the factor.

Pulling people out of financial hardship is entirely beneficial to society, money makes a huge impact on a persons wellbeing & happiness (on average) up-to around $70,000 per year (based on US study). Money gained after that has little to no impact on wellbeing. This is because being poor makes many people unhappy, being rich beyond a certain point doesn't make people happy. Taking this into account it makes sense to try to pull as many as close to the 'required' amount for flourishing as possible.
 
Last edited:
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/research...-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx

Interesting demonstration of how the media can impact how people vote. And when i say interesting i mean depressing. How do you even combat bias and misinformation on this scale?

I was just thinking that with regards to legalising cannabis. It wouldn't matter what the the evidence was from places like the US said, if there was a referendum on the subject then you'd get all the right-wing press propagating myths and David Cameron rolling up his sleeves and said "Golly gosh, I'm passionate about stopping drug use - it really gets my blood pumping" and then there's no way the UK would ever vote to legalise. Really depressing.

My advice to any young, fit, healthy, professional people is get out of this country while you can.
 
Just read what Mr Jack said, Thanks
The whole thing is indeed twaddle then.

I wouldn't say it was total twaddle just that the exact numbers are going to be out. I would expect the general pattern in differences in Tory:Labour voting patterns with age to hold up, but the actual proportions voting Tory to be higher, and those voting Labour lower, probably across the board.

The 65+ group then, probably, doesn't have the voting power to swing it for the Tories but might well have shifted it from a hung parliament to an outright majority.
 
[TW]Fox;28066871 said:
Which utopia do you recommend, scorza?

Well how about Canada, which has a conservative government very similar to our own? Or Australia? Which is run by someone who is a fairly staunch conservative. The U.S.maybe?
 
Canada is about to kick out its conservative government. They've been in power for almost ten years and are increasingly unpopular.
 
Back
Top Bottom